1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to pre-routing of network-based communication events and pertains particularly to methods and apparatus for pre-routing based on real-time determination of importance of events and of agent availability status.
2. Discussion of the State o the Art
Electronic mail (e-mail) has recently become one of the most commonly used communication tools in business. And, as more and more homes are connected to the Internet, Electronic mail is becoming an important communication tool for the home user.
In the simplest case, electronic mail is the delivery of text-based messages from a sending computer to one or more recipient computers. The sending and recipient computers are connected to a data network. Typically, the message is temporarily stored in a server of the data network. The recipient computers (users) can retrieve the stored messages at their convenience.
Although many companies recognize the benefits including efficiency of electronic mail, e-mail systems have been commonplace for a relatively short period of time and many companies have yet to implement e-mail systems. This is largely because e-mail systems in the past were proprietary systems. Messages can only be delivered in such systems if the senders and recipients use the same proprietary system. The proprietary nature of these e-mail systems means that each system can only be accessed by persons associated with the same organization (such as a company or an on-line service provider). It is very difficult to send messages to an intended recipient outside of the system. Thus, a message can only reach a relatively small number of computers (i.e., users). Unless the company has many employees, the costs of setting up an e-mail system may be much higher than the anticipated benefits.
With the continued improvement and expansion of the Internet network and pervasive use thereof by both business and a growing number of home users, it is clear that much improvement could be realized through e-mail efficiency. The Internet also offers many resources in addition to e-mails. Each user of the Internet is assigned an e-mail address that is recognizable around the world. A computer connected to the Internet can send e-mails to any one of these email addresses. As a result, it is possible to communicate electronically with many people at any time.
As a result of the popularity and convenience of e-mails, many companies allow their customers to send comments and request information and services using e-mails. Typically, these companies set up one or more specific e-mail addresses for these purposes. These mails are typically answered on a first come first serve basis.
The inventor knows of a system for routing electronic mails to any one of a plurality of support persons in a processing or communication center. Each person in the center has a particular skill set rating that is suitable for responding to a certain type or class of e-mails. The system comprises an e-mail server for receiving the e-mail from a sender, an information extractor for extracting relevant information from the e-mail, and a router for routing the e-mail. The system contains a database for storing information related to all persons who can answer e-mails. The system also contains a server for storing the history of all activities in the system. The router can make routing decisions and perform load-balancing and alert functions based on the information stored in the database and the server.
In a communication center or other organized communication environment, e-mail routing systems along with conventional telephony and IP routing systems can be made somewhat intelligent with respect to load balancing, skill-set routing, and other conventions dealing with virtually any media type. However, in all routing systems, overloading with respect to message overload in queue can pose a significant challenge in providing timely service to those calling into the center. For example, in a communication center wherein agents deal with multiple media types, response times may vary for the different types. It is important for example that high-priority e-mails are answered in a timely manner, but not at the expense of equally high priority phone calls and event of other media types.
Because a wide variety of different media types and typical response-time requirements exist in a multimedia agent's work environment, it becomes important to balance and prioritize the workload among the varied media types while still remaining within acceptable response times for media types involved. Prior-art routing systems do not provide a method for optimizing media-mixed response scenarios for center agents or agent groups for that matter.
Therefore what is clearly needed is a system and method for pre-routing messages as a precursory step to actual routing routines wherein pre-responses may be sent to lower priority messages leaving higher priority messages to actual agent level routing and treatment.